X-Men trilogy production stories

It's amazing those movies came out as well as they did.

>Bryan Singer didn't want anyone reading the comics during production of the first movie and had them banned from set, but the entire cast had them smuggled in and passed them around as contraband behind Singer's back.

>Beast, Pyro and Blob got cut from the original script because they were too expensive to adapt.

>Michael Jackson heavily pursue the role of Professor X and even filmed a short movie where he played an old, bald white man through makeup and prosthetics to prove that he could pull it off.

>Russell Crowe turned down Wolverine because he had already played a wolf-like character in Gladiator.

>Patrick Stewart turned down Xavier at first because he didn't want to sit for the entire movie.

>Dougray Scott and James Caviezel were originally cast as Wolverine and Cyclops, but both had to drop out at the last minute due to scheduling conflicts.

>Hugh Jackman thought Wolverine was a wolf and tried to act like one for the first few days of shooting. He was almost fired for it.

>The scene where Cyclops smiles at a little boy in the train station was ad-libbed because the kid they got for the scene was a Cyclops fan and couldn't stop smiling.

>Tyler Mane was blinded for almost two days due to wearing his Sabretooth contacts for too long.

>Rebecca Romijn was drunk when she filmed the Wolverine/Mystique fight and barfed blue vomit all over Jackman.

>Romijn actually knocked Bruce Davison unconscious with a kick to the face.

>Jackman is terrified for real in the train scene, since nobody told him the set would literally fall apart around him.

>Everyone just naturally assumed Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen knew how to play chess and only discovered they needed an instructor when it came the day to shoot their scenes playing.

>They auctioned off the custom-made Xavier wheelchair from the first movie and had to rent it out for Patrick Stewart to use in the sequel.

Attached: X-Men.jpg (800x600, 123.77K)

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=-y4FiQx0wpc
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

>Toad and Sabretooth were supposed to come back as Stryker's brainwashed enforcers, but got cut because the studio feared the movie had too many mutants, so they added Deathstrike to the plot to replace them.

>The Danger Room was supposed to appear and even featured in the very first teaser poster and in the opening credits, but they ran out of money and had to cut it from the movie.

>The earlier scripts had the Legacy Virus instead of Dark Cerebro, and also had Stryker using Sentinels to attack the X-Mansion.

>Dark Cerebro was supposed to make mutant powers go crazy, and open the way for some neat cameos (human-looking Hank McCoy turning blue and furry in the middle of a televised debate, Gambit blowing up a stack of cards in a poker game, etc), but they ran out of money and had to settle for deadly migraines.

>At one point Kitty Pryde was supposed to be part of the main group, and there was a Iceman/Rogue/Pyro love triangle.

>The female cast and crew - and James Marsden's mother - ganged up to watch Jackman's nude scene. He tried to cover himself while using the sharp metal prop claws and slashed his thigh.

>Jackman shot makeout scenes with all female cast members for the scene where Mystique tries to seduce him, and none of them were used in the movie.

>The song in Cyclops' car was supposed to be Cher's "Believe". She felt that the movie was making fun of her and refused to sign off on it, so they switched to N'Sync's "Bye Bye Bye".

>James Marsden heavily campaigned for Cyclops to get a cool fight scene against the guards at Magneto's prison, showing off some martial arts moves. He got it... And then most of it was cut.

>Neil Patrick Harris almost played Nightcrawler. He lost out to Alan Cummings because Cummings was already fluent in German.

>Pyro got recast because the first movie's actor sued Singer and his buddies for sexual assault.

Attached: X2.jpg (512x384, 79.44K)

>>The female cast and crew - and James Marsden's mother - ganged up to watch Jackman's nude scene. He tried to cover himself while using the sharp metal prop claws and slashed his thigh.

Holy fuck

>>James Marsden heavily campaigned for Cyclops to get a cool fight scene against the guards at Magneto's prison, showing off some martial arts moves. He got it... And then most of it was cut.

Fuck i want to see it

>Singer got into a fight with producer Tom DeSanto after DeSanto shut down production due to Singer insisting on directing a dangerous stunt while high and getting Jackman injured. Fox removed DeSanto from production, but the entire cast threatened to quit if DeSanto left, and Fox was forced to reinstate him.

>Fox didn't expect the franchise to become as popular as it did and only signed the main cast for two movies, so they had to renegotiate with everyone for X3, leading to pay raises for (almost) everyone.

>Singer left to do Superman Returns with the expectation Fox would wait for him to come back for X3. Fox got so pissed they not only moved forward without him but set X3's release one month before SR.

>Didn't help that when Singer went to do SR, he took the X-movies' composer and editor John Ottman, cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel, writers Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas and James Marsden with him, and also tried to take Jackman, Famke Janssen and Shawn Ashmore too.

>Before leaving, Singer wrote a treatment for X3 which Fox threw away, which included Emma Frost as Xavier's ex-gf who helps Magneto brainwash the Phoenix into serving the Brotherhood and Gambit as a Brotherhood member who switches sides to the X-Men after falling in love with Rogue. Singer planned to cast Sigorney Weaver as Emma and Channing Tatum as Gambit.

>Production was so rushed that James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn and Anna Paquin were not available for the whole shoot and had to be written out - Mystique and Rogue got cured, Cyclops got killed. The writers tried to convince Fox not to do kill off Cyclops, but they thought it would be very dramatic and insisted on it.

>Cyclops almost got killed offscreen in-between movies, then when Marsden became available for a short while, graphically killed onscreen. Dude can't catch a break.

>Halle Berry also refused to return until they expanded her role, made her team leader and let her fly.

Attached: X3.jpg (1024x768, 206.77K)

>Darren Aronofsky, Zack Snyder, Peter Berg, Rob Bowman, John Moore, Joss Whedon and Alex Proyas were among the guys asked to replace Singer before Matthew Vaughn was hired.

>Vaughn was responsible for a lot of stuff, including casting Kelsey Grammer and Vinnie Jones, and came up with a lot of key-scenes, but eventually dropped out since he felt he didn't have enough time to make the movie good, and along came Brett Ratner.

>Maggie Grace from Lost had originally been cast as Kitty Pryde, but got fired for being too old. Ratner heavily pursued Ellen Page for the job, then spent the entire production bullying her for being a (then closeted) lesbian.

>Mike Vogel dropped out as Angel and got replaced by Ben Foster. Most of his scenes got cut, including actually becoming a member of the X-Men.

>Vinnie Jones was cast when Juggernaut had a much bigger role and was actually explicitly Xavier's half-brother. Most of his scenes got cut and he was reduced to just comic relief, and has been vocal about being ripped off by Ratner.

>Colossus had a much bigger role that got cut down in rewrites. Originally he even fought Juggernaut 1v1 and faced off against Magneto on his own.

>They cheaped out on Colossus and just wrapped Daniel Cudmore in a reflexive foil-esque "armor" makeup instead of CGI-ing it.

>Anna Paquin HATED that Rogue took the cure. They shot an alt-version where she didn't, but test-audiences chose the cure ending. They also chose the one where she holds hands with Iceman over the one where they actually kiss since the producers' daughters felt the kiss made it "too sexual".

>There were also alt-endings where Beast becomes a teacher instead of rejoining the government and Wolverine leaves the school instead of sticking around.

>Mystique was supposed to be revealed to still be in cahoots with Magneto in the end, and her whole getting cured and selling him out to the government after being ditched being a master keikaku that went wrong.

Attached: X3.jpg (512x384, 66.29K)

Does anyone have the danger room poster/teaser trailer? I can't ever seem to find it

Not surprised most of these movies are shit, only good ones were X2 and DOFP

>Xavier's death was supposed to be definitive, the stinger where he transferring his mind to his twin brother's braindead body was a last-minute asspull because test-audiences didn't like it.

>The Iceman/Kitty romance was also scrapped because of test-audience, originally they really were fucking behind Rogue's back.

>Some characters from Vaughn's drafts that got scrapped when Singer came along include pheromone-controlling mutant prostitute Stacy-X and anti-cure mutant scientist Dr. Cecilia Reyes.

>Vaughn's drafts also featured Wolverine and Storm hooking up and Rogue going undercover in the Brotherhood. Gambit was still there in some versions and they'd get together while Iceman ends up with Kitty. Also Rogue would be in the final battle and steals Juggernaut's powers.

>Still on Wolverine/Storm, some drafts went further by making Beast be her ex-boyfriend and set up a bit of a love triangle. Some elements of that can still be picked up in the final movie.

>Same drafts borrowed from Ultimate Marvel and had Colossus be gay. And since this was 2006, he was BFFs with Rogues and thought Wolverine was hot.

>Biggest change from the Vaughn drafts was the plot structure: The bridge scene was supposed to happen in the middle of the movie, and Alcatraz would be a mutant prison instead of the headquarters of Worthington Labs. Magneto would break out its inmates to build his army, then unleash the Phoenix, which would level the entirety of San Francisco, killing thousands of people.

>The final battle was meant to happen in Washington, D.C., with the Brotherhood first attacking and actually destroying Worthington Labs, and then targeting the White House, which is when the X-Men come in to save the day. Ratner felt that the bridge move as too impressive NOT to be the final setpiece and changed this around accordingly. Also, Fox balked at Jean committing mass murder despite it being a homage to the comics.

Attached: X-Men.jpg (1600x1066, 321.67K)

>Executive producer Tom Rothman was the one that pushed for the Phoenix to be Jean's split personality instead of a cosmic entity. He didn't like the alien/magic aspects of the mythos. He had also barred the Sentinels from showing up because "the audience won't like giant robots" and pushed the mutant cure storyline to give Magneto more prominence.

>Kevin Feige convinced them to include Beast saying "Oh my stars and garters".

>There's an alt-ending where Pyro actually reforms and goes back to school, but test-audiences felt he was too evil to get redemption, so he just kinda' disappears after being headbutted by Iceman, since there was no time to film a proper death scene.

>Some scrapped sequences include a big Wolverine VS. Multiple-Man battle and a car chase where Kitty and Iceman rescue Warren Worthington Sr. from the Morlocks.

I got you, senpai.

youtube.com/watch?v=-y4FiQx0wpc

Attached: X2.jpg (346x512, 45.95K)